Starve #10

Writer – Brian Wood
Artist – Danijel Zezelj
Colours – Dave Stewart
Letters – Steve Wands

The Starve finale is upon us both in terms of the competition and the book itself as Brian Wood and Danijel Zezelj tie everything up with a nice neat bow. The book begins with a look at the past when Gavin took off and went into exile, then the more recent past and finally the present. Most of it is centered on Gavin, the star of our show, but does manage to shine a bit of a light upon his ex-wife and even more so, his daughter Angie. Ever since Gavin returned, he has had a plan – a way to escape his former overlords for good, to set his daughter up with some independence and to take down the man with as little damage to him and his as possible. By the end of the issue, everything gets wrapped up quite well, almost as if Gavin knew what he was doing all along though you could tell there were moments where he was just winging it as best he could. As a conclusion to the series, the story works well, but it is not as exciting as previous issues were. More to the point, it seems like more of a documentary than anything else and while captivating, you really wish that Wood and company could find some way to continue it even though it reached a logical end. This version of the future that our cast resides in was vastly unexplored and those little bits that we did see were fascinating. If we are really lucky, there will be a season two either featuring the same characters or an all-new cast, yet hopefully in the same dystopian future. At the end of the day, Starve was a highly original book, one featuring a concept we have never seen on the printed page before. Wood crafted a fine story and Zezelj provided the book with the very necessary visuals to portray it in all its grizzled glory. While this book has ended, it would be nice to see this creative team move on to something else together though if not, we can at least be thankful that they made a damned fine story that stood out from the pack.

4 out of 5

Captain America: Steve Rogers #2

Writer – Nick Spencer
Artist – Jesus Saiz
Letters – VC’s Joe Caramagna

With the first issue of this story being left on such a cliff-hanger and leaving much of the world in a bit of a rage, you and the world had to know that it would be addressed in this issue. What is quite funny is that everyone completely believed that Steve would be a Hydra agent and that he might have been so for quite a long number of years. The fact of the matter is that believing him to be so was preposterous and that Nick Spencer would have a little something up his sleeve to explain it all away and that is exactly what happens here. As was recently shown during the events of Avengers: Standoff, Steve was made a young and virile man again thanks to the Cosmic Cube named Kobik. That moment and more are explored as Spencer takes us on a tour of the Cube’s history, especially focusing on its time with the Red Skull – Captain America’s greatest foe. Additionally, while Spencer focuses upon the Red Skull, we also get to see the formation of the new Hydra which is under his command, a direct result of his association with Kobik. We get to see quite readily just how different this new Hydra is going to be compared to the old one and you know that once Cap gets his bearings back, trying to take them down might be the hardest thing he will ever have to do. Little is made of the events which took place last issue, especially that shocking death. What the fallout will be, one can only guess but you have to know that Cap will not be suspected at first, not until other strange phenomena start to take place on a more regular basis. By the lack of outrage or headlines about this issue, the general public must have been appeased by what took place during this story and now the only thing that remains is to see how things turn out. The biggest question that this book raises, aside from how Cap is going to get deprogrammed, is just how the Marvel Universe is going to deal with Kobik – or even if Kobik can be dealt with.

4 out of 5